


always, i'll care

by Adverant



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hanahaki Disease, Mutually Unrequited, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25104163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adverant/pseuds/Adverant
Summary: “This needs to stop,” Hajime stated sternly, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, only after shoving Oikawa’s knee off his lap. Oikawa had stared back in confusion and surprise.“Don’t look at me like that, you know what you’ve been doing.” Hajime snapped impatiently, his heel tapped the floor a few times on reflex but he caught it and stilled as quickly as possible to maintain composure. “What I don’t know is why.”
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	always, i'll care

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurawinterrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurawinterrain/gifts).



> This is a one-shot for the 2020 summer Oikawa exchange [you can find here](https://oikawa-exchange.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I really loved all the prompts you gave, Aura, but this was the idea I was most attached to, so I hope you (and anyone else who reads this) enjoy it!

In Hajime’s experience, love is an absolute bitch.

That being said he might be just a little bit biased, having a rough time of it pretty early on in life. He often wonders how many people in the world have experienced it the way he has, suffered the way he has with it. When he was younger it had been an absolute anomaly to begin with, nobody knew what to do with this strange knowledge they had of him, not his parents. Not his doctors and there were many of those. Especially when he hit middle school.

It had started something like when he was a couple of years older than a toddler, with no real understanding for what he was going through. Hajime had no possible knowledge of love, except that usually, feelings like that didn’t typically bring discomfort in his abdomen that only became worse as he thought about it. It wasn’t like that with his parents, or with his little brother, Eiko. With them— with family— it had been a warm, comforting feeling that enveloped their moments together. It had often filled his young self with awe, the way his heart would flutter with pride or affection when it came to how he loved his family. At first, Hajime hadn’t identified this new kind of love as any different from family. Familiar. Warm. Comfortable. Unconditional, even if at times they were both stubborn and fickle. That’s just how kids are. Well, maybe it was just how they were as kids, though his own mother would swear to the moon and back he’d grown up an angel, he always wonders if that has more to do with how grateful she is just that he is alive now. That he saw the edge of death so young and came back from it.

It wasn’t what he had been looking for. Completely unintentional, the way over years he can barely remember that comfortable, familiar love bloomed into something much more sinister. It was a love that left him at a loss for words, betrayed him, and even came to harm him. He can still remember his mother’s tales of love and none of them had prepared him for it, it wasn’t like a loss he had suffered really. He hadn’t felt a loss from it until much later when the end of his physical suffering came. They’d met as toddlers, snot-faced, chubby, and sloppy. They had bonded instantly, in a way that neither of their parents could ignore. Hajime couldn’t hide how ecstatic he had been when he found out they’d be attending school together when they started grade school, no matter how much he had tried to keep a grumpy composure about the whole thing. His teasing always riled up the other in a way that was just… it was adorable. Back then, he’d known it, and no matter how he’d deny it in the coming years it had still been true.

Things change. Things have changed.

It wasn’t long after they’d started school together that the pain had started. It twisted knots in his stomach and had him making faces, though at that age he had mostly disregarded it, too focussed on the enjoyable aspects of life, like having fun on the playground and staring at that incredibly soft brown hair, that made him seem so delicate, even as a blundering child. It wasn’t like he’d had a moment where he thought,  _ Oh god this is it _ because the concept of falling in love with his best friend was not only the farthest thing from his mind but he hadn’t even been able to comprehend it. Time passed, with it they grew, and even a couple of inches of height separating them hadn’t done much to quell whatever it was Hajime was feeling. Neither was the fact that the other boy ate his own snot still.

No matter how gross he still finds that fact.

They really just didn’t bring it up, it’s not even great teasing material. In that time the pain had increased though, it had gone from an occasional discomfort that had him making faces, to an outright ache. He had stayed home with his parents for some time in his second year, they had been so worried he might have the flu or something when months passed and his mother finally had made him confide in her the truth behind his little twitches and winces. When the symptoms hadn’t eased and the separation began to affect him as well, his parents had tentatively sent him back to school and quickly scheduled him a check-up with their family doctor.

It’s been too long, Hajime doesn’t remember how that first check-up had gone. He’s sure it had been just an in-and-out kind of visit, his parents just as uncomfortable with the idea of their first son being there as Hajime himself had been.

Over years, the diagnosis had been chalked up to some kind of chronic pain he would just have to grow to tolerate. For his parents to hear a thing like that, from so many doctors, it had been devastating. They’d tried anything they could to relieve it, even just to alieve the pain a little. In the meantime, he’d still spent his time following his lanky, awkward best friend around, making fun of him to hear the way indignance would break his composure, positively mooning after the poor boy. He’d never been proud of it, he’s still embarrassed by himself. Nobody had picked up on it though, his affections continued to remain his secret until love had finally intruded on his life when Tooru had first found a girlfriend to entertain his spare time. Child’s play really, they hadn’t been together for very long and what they had could barely be described as a relationship, but it’d had Hajime burning up. Feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and guilt ate at him with the pain until he became a shadow of the happy child he had been.

Tooru, being Tooru and inheriting his mother’s ability to read the room like a television summary, had picked up on the change almost instantly. He’d made more and more time for Hajime until he was hardly seeing the girl at all, she had quickly become a background fixture to their life and eventually, she grew bored of it. Of course, the closer Tooru stayed to Hajime, the sharper the digging pain in his gut got. Volleyball, for them both, had become kind of a safe haven. It was the one time Hajime was more focussed on anything else than he was Tooru and in the meantime his stomach only mildly ached, allowing him to play. It didn’t take very long into middle school, a matter of weeks, before Hajime concluded he was clearly in love and not going to fall out of it. It hadn’t escaped him either that two boys being together like that was unheard of, that he was either wrong or rare, and he was particularly fond of being either of those things. Already, he was set apart from his peers by something he couldn’t help from as early as childhood, he hadn’t wanted any other factors to add to that. Unfortunately, life didn’t care much for what he had wanted.

It still doesn’t.

In middle school, they’d suffered agonizing defeat upon agonizing defeat at the hands of other powerhouse school Shirtatorizawa, and the experience had only brought them closer. After every loss, facing a scoreboard that told them just how far away from victory they had been— really only a sliver— Hajime would do what he could to support Tooru, while Tooru continued to trudge forward and lead his team to a place he was sure would end in victory. It never had, however, and every time Hajime comforted Tooru it grew harder to breathe. He couldn’t sleep, awoken in the middle of the night with paralyzing pain, coiled tightly in him and numbing his mind to thought. He couldn’t eat, it only aggravated his stomach and caused even more discomfort for him, so he’d often lie to his mother about what he had eaten. Eventually, of course, she had taken notice, but by then she was at as much of a loss as he was. She still had another child to care for, and he could tell from her eyes that there was a deep-seated fear in her that Eiko would turn out the same. She watched him ever so carefully whenever he grew ill, always asking about his stomach, panic-ridden at the idea that she could be bringing children into the world just to suffer and wither away.

It made him ashamed to be alive, or at least to be living that way because he knew at heart his mother was a good person and that if she had known what he would go through after being born, she wouldn’t have had children. He wanted her to be able to enjoy raising his brother, to be able to watch his little brother grow without fears or worries, he was always concerned for Hajime. He couldn’t help thinking it was meant to be the other way around, worrying for the young, clumsy boy whom he shares parents, family, and blood. Whom he shares his home. It was hard to hide what he was dealing with from his classmates, but it had been impossible to hide it from his parents. They watched him like he had been dying, and he might have been. It had terrified him, he couldn’t help thinking,  _ I’m not ready for my life to be over, _ he had always turned to Tooru in moments like that. When things got really bad, he would just think  _ I can’t go before I tell him how I feel, how I actually feel. _ Because it would be cruel to lie to Tooru about a thing like that, right up until the end, even if it’s what he wanted— for his best friend to remain his best friend regardless of what the truth was.

Hajime had been terrified, he had been afraid and faced with the stinging reality that Tooru had never and would never feel the same. At least, Hajime had thought that he wouldn’t. In hindsight, it’s all rather ironic.

Their third year in middle school hadn’t come fast, it had lasted forever, but for Hajime, it was a blur.

Hiding things from his mother was near impossible, especially when she watched him so closely, so absorbed with her fears and anxieties. Hajime’s stomach pains had made him quiet, and slowly he’d grown able to withstand it without appearing so vulnerable to her.

He can still remember the spike in his heart rate, absolute horror sending a twinge down his spine when he stared at his open, face-up palms hovering over the stained porcelain bathroom sink. Flecks of red dotted the once clean, crisp white surface, and his fingers shook while he stared wide-eyed at his palms, splattered with the same freckles of red. Dread overwhelmed him and he raised his gaze slowly to the mirror, shaking and stained fingertips brushing his lips gingerly and smudging the blood that had welled up on his bottom lip. It tasted coppery and sharp, burned his throat a little and he was frozen by indecision.  _ What do I do? _ Hajime had thought in panic, and with a chilling fear the thought was quickly followed.

_ I can’t tell anybody. Not even Mom. _

It couldn’t have lasted forever, holding off on updating his mother of his condition. It couldn’t have, because even if he’d gotten away with it he might have been dead by now. That’s where the lines began to blur for Hajime. He would at first only occasionally cough in the showers and watch the coppery, wretched red wash down the drain. He was careful not to let Tooru accompany him from the first time it had happened, worried about how his best friend would react. He had no way of knowing that if Tooru saw Hajime circling the drain, like the blood he desperately tried to wash away, he wouldn’t just withdraw while he still could. His mother didn’t want to watch him die, and his father had outright refused to. He was even grateful at times for the normalcy his father tried to keep up with him, pretending as if the condition didn’t exist. Pretending it wasn’t a sentence to an early grave. He didn’t want his mother to watch him die either, but he hoped like hell Tooru would do it anyway no matter what he personally felt about it. Hajime had always chastised him for doing things like that, not considering himself and his own health when it came to volleyball, to Hajime, or to other select things. Like alien hunting, when they’d been kids. Suddenly Hajime had felt much older.

It was after they had lost to shiratorizawa for the final time in middle school when his condition had gotten drastically worse, that he could no longer hide it, even from his peers. His mother of course had been furious, in a panic and when Hajime had hurled blood into the kitchen sink because he simply hadn’t had time to do it behind a closed door. He figured he could chalk it up to something he’d eaten, but then it hadn’t stopped. It hadn’t stopped, and it had come with a new development. Tiny needle-like thorns tore through his throat and he whimpered at the intense feeling, overwhelmed and far beyond his bounds. His mother had rubbed soothing circles into his upper back as she dialled for an ambulance as quickly as her trembling fingers could.

By that point, they had to rule out a psychological cause, and chronic pain was clearly out. They were back to endless consults, appointments for x-rays, waiting. Lots and lots of waiting.

What they had found left the doctors speechless, unsure how to explain to his mother what was wrong. When they finally had, she had been petrified. She couldn’t stop babbling,  _ That’s not possible. That’s not real.  _ To say Hajime himself had been surprised would be an understatement, but in a way, he’d felt so  _ relieved _ . Relieved to know it wasn’t in his head, or just the way his body had been made. That his mother wasn’t in any way at fault for what he was going through, that Eiko would grow up happy and healthy after him.

Once they knew what was wrong, they’d administered additional pain medication, and he’d become a little incoherent. He remembered his parents discussing the surgery, he remembered the doctors, at least vaguely, referring to what was inside of him as some kind of parasite. Some of them were excited about the discovery, but he couldn’t imagine being  _ excited _ about something that may very well kill him before they can get it out of his body, so he couldn’t relate and he’s sure there were some cruel and blunt remarks made from him on their views of the situation and how it would benefit them.

Not his proudest moment, probably, but hey. He was on drugs, and not even by choice. So whatever.

All he could retain about the surgery had been a few moments before it when he could barely see and felt his mother’s hand in his, and his father’s palm on his shoulder squeezing gently while they wished him the best, and he could hear the shake in her voice from the tears and the fear that he might not make it through the surgery. Risks existed in everything, the risks for this though had been particularly shocking for his mother to hear. That, and he could remember the pictures that had come afterward.

It had been roses.

An entire bush, thorny stems curling and weaving through his stomach and intestines, needles digging into his flesh and causing a slow bleeding every time he had moved. It would coagulate when he held still for long enough, but with the increase in the growth, his body wasn’t able to heal around the thorns anymore. He couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it had been to unknot the tangle inside of him, to pull each thorn that had been integrated into his flesh. Hajime probably spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about that, and it had taken months of therapy to detach himself from the apparent parasite that had ruined his young life for so long.

When Hajime had come out of the surgery, he had thought Eiko was alone at his bedside. That it’d been only a couple of hours, maybe a night, since they’d last seen each other. But the hand in his was too large, too calloused, and the fingers too long and boney to be his little brother.

It wasn’t what he expected.

The way those hollow eyes widened in shock and even a little in relief when Hajime himself squinted back. Kind, brown eyes. Ones he’d known since he was very small when they met on the playground in their neighbourhood, that he’d watched light up with fire when he demanded to stay an hour longer at the park so they wouldn’t be apart. Those eyes were framed by deep purple bruises and a tentative pink tongue wet his cracked lips. That was not the face of someone he’d last seen at school only days ago.

It had been months, it had been months that Hajime was in an induced comatose state to allow his body to repair itself. And after all that time inside his head, unaware of the outside, practically having slept through the rest of third year, Hajime met Oikawa Tooru’s eyes and felt… relief. Relief, and joy, but nothing else. He was just happy to see his best friend. There was no pain, other than a little bit of soreness that radiated his entire body, and grogginess he couldn’t fully come out of yet no matter how he tried. There was also none of that heart-fluttering, none of those invasive thoughts he couldn’t say out loud for fear of losing Tooru. Hajime had breathed a sigh of relief.

But as life often does, things had changed. Tooru had sat for hours at his bedside for months, and in that time so much had changed without Hajime’s knowledge. Beyond what he could see something fundamental was different between them, he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was.

Now he knows better, of course, but how could he have predicted something like this?

Going back to school is the last thing Hajime is interested in usually, but this year was different. This year nothing was holding him back, he was starting high school, he was healthy, and his best friend was by his side. Tooru never went back to the carefree boy he had been before, he was ruthless and ridiculous, pushing himself too hard and paying the consequences. Hajime’s always there to bring him back, even when, again in the first year they lose to their old rivals again. Their friendship is as strong as ever, it can transcend whatever history Hajime has had, and he was beyond grateful. He was grateful that Tooru stayed by his bedside, but that was it, and it was honestly so much of a relief.

Not much longer after they get back to volleyball, Hajime buried his lost feelings for Tooru for good. It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t some nostalgic moment that he’d put much thought into really. He’d just sat there on the roof of the school next to Tooru during lunch, picking at the rice balls his mother had taught him to make for himself, smoked salmon tucked neatly into the center. He’d watched his best friend eat his milk bread first, picking pieces from it to eat at a time, so it would last because they both know he can’t help himself to hold back. He watched, and he considered coming forward. Hajime turned over in his head the many ways to tell Tooru the truth, that their relationship had been different for him practically from the start, but then he’d realized. He didn’t feel the way he had in middle school, obsessive. Absorbed. He looked at Tooru in ways that weren’t that different from their other friends. Hajime had placed a hand against his stomach thoughtfully, a little spaced out when Tooru, observant as he was, stopped picking at his favorite food and blinked curiously. That peaceful, happy expression had been tainted by a slight frown when he’d asked, eyes focussed on Hajime’s hand, “Does it hurt?”

Hajime thought about it carefully but he responded honestly. “Not anymore.”

With that, his feelings had been put to bed. There was no longer some second entity constricting inside of him and causing him pain, and when he thought of Tooru it didn’t hurt either. When he thought of how he had felt about Tooru, it hadn’t hurt. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow he’d fallen out of love. It wasn’t a jarring, ruinous experience either. It had been rather simple actually, he’d just… stopped. It was as if the feelings had never been there at all, Hajime was at peace with that. He’d never questioned it.

In hindsight everything is twenty-twenty, his mother had always told him, and it’s that same reason Hajime knows now that it had been the flowers. When they were plucked from him, along with all the petals that had clung to his lungs stained by blood, so had his love for Tooru.

Life had gone on relatively normal, for a year, a year and a half.

In second year, Hajime had even met a cute transfer student. She had short, dark hair and dark eyes, they had always had a knowing look about them. An understanding he hadn’t found in anybody else, ever. Not even Tooru.

The other wasn’t pleased.

It didn’t take long before Hajime had become completely enamoured, and Tooru couldn’t place the feeling that soured his tongue at the way Hajime had withdraw from him since they had met. It was infuriating, one moment his best friend had been his, and the next they were barely seeing one another.

Tooru would be the last to hear about what was happening in Hajime’s life, oftentimes he had heard from his own mother about it. Their parents had apparently been able to keep strong ties while Hajime and Tooru themselves had been slowly growing apart, and he was helpless to do anything about it. Kaori, however, was obviously always the first to know. He hadn’t even known they’d been dating for the first few weeks that it had been happening, he remembered sitting on the roof, waiting for his Iwa-chan like he always did, but he never came.

Instead, Hanamaki and Matsukawa had joined him in their usual lunch spot, where they joined him and Hajime infrequently, sharing puzzled and concerned glances. “Where’s Iwaizumi?” Makki asked, addressing the obvious elephant in the room. It only made Oikawa more bitter, barely touching his lunch, rather just poking at it. “He’s not sick again is he?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tooru deadpanned sharply, closing his bento aggressively and just shoving it back into his bag.

“My my, what a sour look,” Matsukawa commented, “you mean you actually don’t know?” He seemed genuinely surprised, eyeing Oikawa carefully while he pulled out a school notebook, the one he wrote volleyball strategies in and picked through the pages like they had personally offended him.

“Wait, what aren’t we knowing?” Hanamaki quips quickly, giving Matsukawa a look of faux offence. Obviously he’d expected them to have common knowledge. Oikawa bitterly thought,  _ Yeah, I know how that feels. _ He didn’t say it out loud though, just focussed his gaze back to the lined pages.

“For real?” Matsukawa scoffed, giving Matsukawa a gentle nudge with his shoulder, “How could you not notice the way Tamaki-san hangs off of his arm?” He seemed legitimately surprised and Oikawa rolled his eyes.

“That’s old news. What’s your point?” Oikawa grumbled, lips pulled into a tight pout. He’d grown tired of the topic honestly, he just wanted to know how it related to his best friend not being with them.

Matsukawa went on without a hitch even to Oikawa’s bitter reception, explaining further, “Last I heard they’re having a lunch date. Think it might be a regular thing.” He feigned lamented, clearly not all that distressed about the situation contrary to Oikawa’s minor aneurysm at the new knowledge, Matsukawa seemed proud but he couldn’t care less. “Looks like that’s it, guys. They’re going to get married and have kids and he’s going to leave us all behind.”

Hanamaki shook his head in disbelief, “I can’t believe Iwaizumi got a girlfriend before me,” He whined, stuffing an onigiri in his mouth before continuing with a full mouth, “I mean, I’m a catch!”

“Good riddance,” Oikawa huffed angrily, closing his notebook and getting to his feet quickly, with the book shoved under his arm. Hanamaki and Matsukawa look up at him in surprise, obviously having expected a different kind of reaction than what he gave. “I’m not hungry. I’ll catch you at practice.”

_ I can’t believe, _ he huffed quietly to himself,  _ he’d hide something like this from me! _ Tooru had watched Hajime step back from their relationship and had been fully aware it was happening, but he’d expected that he would still always be a big enough part of Hajime’s life to be worth telling about a development like this. Let alone that he wasn’t the first to know about it. That kind of thing just wouldn’t stand for him. It was probably very impulsive of him, but he wasn’t going to let it slide without making it apparent how a part of Hajime’s world he was meant to be.

It took him some time to find them, but surely enough sitting on the field near the volleyball gym, Hajime was talking calmly to an avid and excitable girl with sharp features and short, pixie-cut dark hair that framed her small face. She looked delicate, though gesturing wildly like that she looked deeply and passionately involved in whatever they were talking about. It just further agitated him, that he had to learn from observation rather than from Hajime’s own words. Weren’t people in love supposed to spread all that gooey, lovey stuff with any willing or unwilling soul they could?

Tooru didn’t catch their notice until he was practically right at their feet, Tamaki Kaori’s abyss-like eyes flicking up to him with a mix of emotions, most of which were probably neutral or confused but he took it with a hefty teaspoon of salt, choosing to believe she was unhappy to see him. He hoped she was unhappy to see him, even hoped she’d leave. He dropped his hands to Iwaizumi’s shoulders and leaned his weight on the shorter boy, his back bowing under the weight a little bit, with a strange sound of surprise. “Iwa-chan~!” He chimed brightly, veiling his displeasure, “Where have you been?” He hummed curiously, a wicked edge to his smile that Iwaizumi couldn’t see from his angle.

“Get the hell off, Shittykawa-” Iwaizumi started, and Tamaki adorned a look of mild amusement and confusion while Tooru blundered on, ignoring his request and only leaning more heavily onto the dark-haired boy.

“Tamaki-san! Did you know he kind of abandoned me?” Tooru trilled in mock scandal, though internally he felt it a little too honestly. “Why don’t you invite her to sit with us, Iwa-chan?” He pouts.

“Um, hello, Oikawa-kun… No, I um, didn’t,” she mumbled, clearly not sure where he was going with this or how to react to him.

Iwaizumi huffed in irritation, leaning back and shoving Tooru off of him. He really shouldn’t take it too personally, after all, Iwaizumi had always manhandled him. This time around he had underlying bitterness that put unnecessary connotation on Iwaizumi’s actions. “Obviously, because you’re like  _ this,  _ who would want to be around that?” Iwaizumi grumbled, crossing his arms stubbornly and glaring up at Oikawa, though Tooru relished in the fact that he actually looked just the tiniest bit relieved. “And we are on a date right now, so go away.”

Oikawa gasped and even to his own ears it sounded disgustingly fake, “A date!” He shrieked, “My my, Iwa-chan, what did Kaa-chan say about picking up random helpless girls?” He shook his head in disapproval, though his expression quickly brightened again. Tooru can tell Tamaki is horribly uncomfortable in how this was developing, glancing between the two of them she seemed to have trouble keeping up.

“Random?” Kaori quietly inquired, frustrated by the situation she was put in with this, she turned her glance to Iwaizumi for an explanation without bothering to hide her blatant displeasure at the thought.

Iwaizumi returned her gaze apologetically, his heart was beating a little faster and he was trying his best to figure out how to defuse Tooru’s attitude and the situation in the most efficient way. He opened his mouth to reassure her that they’d had enough time together, that this had been a reasonable decision, but before he could get anything out he was being cut off again. He winced internally at Tooru’s words, anger boiling up in response. “Well yeah! I haven’t heard a single thing about you other than your name,” Tooru gestured back to the main school building, laughing as though any of it was actually funny, “and I heard that from our homeroom instructor.”

“Don’t you have a hoard of fangirls to entertain, Shittykawa?” Hajime grumbled, growing steadily more irritable.

“Aw, are you jealous? You shouldn’t show such an unbecoming side of yourself to a potential new lady, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa scolded in a teasing tone. Much to Hajime’s distress and frustration, Tooru made himself comfortable sitting beside them, one leg bent and the other stretched out, a knowing grin adorned his face when he tilted his head and shared a look with Iwaizumi. He could practically see the way Hajime was boiling under his skin, it was unusual to see him exhibit such restraint, he’d never held back on Oikawa before. “I can’t believe you even call this a date.” He lilted, bemused.

“What are you doing?” Iwaizumi demanded between grit teeth. Oikawa just shrugged.   
  


“Enjoying the company. Aren’t you?” He trilled, leaning back onto his hands. “Anyway, what were we talking about?”

“Oikawa-san,” Tamaki started, clearly taken aback by the entire situation and trying to find a polite way to ask him to leave. He could tell by the way she struggled to find her words, he just decided to continue on without letting her finish.

It wasn’t like he cared about what she had to say, though he still spoke to her rather than ignoring her altogether. “He doesn’t even tell me about you, you know.” He dropped casually and met Tamaki’s eyes, which were watching him in disbelief. “That’s really not a great sign, hm?”

He was petty, so be it. Oikawa wanted her to doubt how much she was worth to Hajime, it still had taken him months after than to realize why.

Holding Hajime’s hand while he’d been under— healing, the doctors had told him— had been the scariest thing he’d ever experienced in his life. It had been more terrifying than hurting his knee, than realizing that he might never recover permanently if he didn’t take a break. Oikawa wasn’t sure if his best friend, the one reliable person in his life, would ever wake up. He’d thought Hajime would never come back to him and in a strange kind of roundabout way, that had felt the same.

Watching the space between them grow, the things Hajime didn’t tell him bubble over, it had felt like Hajime would never come back home.

Oikawa wasn’t about to sit, hold his hand, and watch him slip away in his sleep this time though. He’d buckled down and made a poor, but important, decision. It left an ache in his chest that was impossible to describe and that rarely left him. It wasn’t that he was really trying to hurt Tamaki, though the things he’d say often left a sour taste even in his own mouth. It was more that he was trying to make himself seen. It had never eased, the doubt and pain caused by hearing about her from Matsukawa before Hajime himself. Hajime had intentionally given him the cold shoulder after that particular experience, but neither he nor Tamaki had asked him to leave. They simply shared uncomfortable glances or avoided each others’ eyes while Oikawa had led the conversation, not without crude comments.

It wasn’t the last time it’d happened though. Oikawa began to make a point of interrupting them, bitter about the way he’d found out, hurt by how Hajime had brushed him off before, and even more after. It seemed that Hajime had realized that the fault was at least somewhat in his own actions, however, because the third time Oikawa had made himself comfortable on the couch practically on his lap in the Iwaizumi household, while Tamaki and he had been watching a movie, he’d given up on the game of ignoring his personal pest.

Hajime had quietly let it slide, talked quietly to Oikawa casually like he hadn’t been ignoring him for weeks, at least until Tamaki had awkwardly gotten her school bag off the floor, nodded goodbye to Oikawa, and had kissed Hajime on the cheek on her way out. It’d set his nerves alight with anger. Realistically, he had known it wasn’t her prerogative, but he’d felt a sting in his heart that met with the thoughts in his head.  _ She did that on purpose. She’s trying to get under my skin. _

Then, he’d been vulnerable, faced suddenly with Hajime’s anger and frustration, as well as the sudden realization of what those feelings had been all this time. He hadn’t been angry like that just because his best friend was cutting him out of his life, because he’d developed a new relationship. “This needs to stop,” Hajime stated sternly, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, only after shoving Oikawa’s knee off his lap. Oikawa had stared back in confusion and surprise.

“Don’t look at me like that, you know what you’ve been doing.” Hajime snapped impatiently, his heel tapped the floor a few times on reflex but he caught it and stilled as quickly as possible to maintain composure. “What I don’t know is why.”

“What do you mean?” Oikawa coughed out and turned away, panic fluttering cold in his chest with a fresh sting of pain, an uncomfortable pressure rising in the back of his throat. “I just want time with you.”

“Idiot, you think I can’t tell when you’re lying to me after we practically grew up together?” Hajime called him out in disbelief. “I get it. You’re jealous. But you’re followed around by girls all day at school, just pick one, and you can stop being jealous. What is it, because she doesn’t follow you?”

Oikawa opened and closed his mouth dryly, at a loss for something to say for the first time in a while. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what the answer to that was. It was that he didn’t know how to respond, exactly. It was such a shock to hear, after his own moment of revelation. “That’s not it,” He eventually choked out, and it sounded as dry to his own ears as it did to Hajime’s. He winced, wishing he could have thought of anything more eloquent. “Please, I’m serious that’s not- I’m not jealous of you.”

That seemed a little more believable to Hajime, as he watched his best friend very carefully. “...Then what the hell, Tooru?”

“I’m not jealous of you I’m… I’m jealous of her, Hajime.” Oikawa squeezed his eyes shut against the anxiety of saying it out loud. What he’d just come to learn, already he’d had to admit it out loud. It was too soon. He couldn’t bear to see Iwaizumi react to it, either, so he hid in the only way he knew how without physically removing himself from the situation.

Though he couldn’t see Hajime’s expression, he could hear the way his voice had softened. “Oh. Is that all?” Oikawa slowly opened his eyes again, heart beating out of his chest. “Jesus, Tooru. If all you wanted was more of my time you could have… just, told me or something. You didn’t have to do all this. I’m sorry.” It made his heart sink like a stone in the ocean, he clicked his tongue. He felt trapped.

How was he supposed to be more clear than he had been?

“No. That’s not good enough.” Oikawa spoke stubbornly, words sharp and decided. “I’m not jealous of her for the time, Iwa-chan.” The second bit he said a little bit quieter, he took a slow, shuddering breath.

“Oh,” Iwaizumi responded dumbly, his frown grew deeper while he turned it over in his head, trying to understand.

They sat in silence, avoiding each others’ eyes for several long moments. His ears felt hot and his heart was racing, doubt wasn’t a state Oikawa was used to living in, but it was all he felt for that entire time.

Out of the corner of his eye, Oikawa watched Iwaizumi take a deep breath when he came to the decision on how he would respond, he felt the pressure in his chest rise. His throat tightened and weakly, he protested, “Please, don’t.”

Hajime’s pained eyes met Tooru’s damp ones and after only those short moments of silence, he shattered the suspense. “I gave you up a long time ago.” His voice was so full of emotion that it had Tooru choking on it, he turned his head away to hide the tears. His throat and chest burned, and he hiccuped with the suddenness of it. He would never have been ready to hear it, though, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d taken the time to think or he had decided never to tell Iwaizumi the truth. One day, no matter how hard he’d tried to hide it, one day he would have found out.

Tooru didn’t have the will to sit through it and talk. He didn’t have the constitution to stay by Iwaizumi’s side and figure out how to salvage almost twenty years of friendship, instead, without a word he’d gotten to his feet and left. He’d never looked back, and it had been the last time they’d spoken to each other like that.

Over the following year, Oikawa had watched Iwaizumi with Tamaki from a distance. He’d averted his eyes every time they ran into each other, he’d closed his eyes every time he saw them hold hands, and he held his breath every time they kissed. Over a year he’d felt the way, even from so far away, that being officially separate from Iwaizumi tore apart his heart. He’d grown incredibly tired, unwilling to agree to his friends’ attempts at meeting halfway, unwilling to fully turn his back but he knew he would never get through it if he’d crawled back.

It was a sick sense of self-preservation and in the end, it had been just as deadly.

In the days that had followed Iwaizumi’s rejection, he’d had trouble facing himself, so maybe that had been what stopped him from figuring it out himself sooner. When they’d lost to Karasuno, he only slipped further and further from reality, watched things fall away with little say on them. He offered only vague reassurances. For years, he’d always been saying  _ next year _ , but now he was having trouble seeing past tomorrow. It had started with what he thought was a clench in his heart in the mornings like the heartbreak had been physically manifested, and that was exactly how he had treated it. Avoiding himself in mirrors and reflections, Tooru had gone on about his life doing only the bare minimum. Where he’d really realized the change was when it came to volleyball. He’d gone abroad a few years, he had figured once he’d graduated, gotten out of Japan, put real tangible space between them, he’d figured that was what would sever whatever that pain was that he was holding onto.

Of course, though, Oikawa wasn’t that lucky. Running away from his problems hadn’t worked before, and it sure as hell hadn’t happened then either. It was two years, an almost constant feeling of claustrophobia. He never talked about it, maybe if he had he could have stopped what was bound to happen, but before he’d realized he was in trouble, the shortness of breath had come on. He had been so desperate to hide his own deficit that he’d renegotiated his position with Argentina over it, and gone home a year early.

By the time he’d gotten there, though, it was too late. It wasn’t that some doctor had told him, but as the cough built up and he could feel the lurch of dread in his stomach, just as the sky was blue he was sure. Oikawa knew he was done, that he would be done soon. Under normal circumstances, the only place he would have wanted to spend it would be at Hajime’s side, but in those ones, he hadn’t known where Hajime was in years. He wasn’t about to find out. Instead, he’d watched, fearful, terrified to be living in his own body as it betrayed him and his time slowly ran out. The sands of minutes, hours, and days had fallen between his fingers until the first bloody petal found it’s way up his throat. It was marred, dark, and you could hardly even tell it had probably been white once. He’d held the limp, velvety-textured thing between two fingers and stared as if it were a snowflake he was seeing for the first time. It wasn’t that he was scared of what it meant, he had suspected he’d even known for months even a year or maybe longer by then. It was a note of certainty. He’d have to let go of any doubt he might have had, because just as the sky was blue, Tooru was sure.

Hajime hadn’t believed it when he heard. He stood at the door to the hospital room, so familiar yet it wasn’t the same, he refused to walk in. Tamaki was still at work, really he’d meant to make this trip on his own but it wasn’t really up to him. Carefully, quietly, he’d finally gathered the courage to step inside. He could remember the fear, the surprise, on Tooru’s face when he’d woken up. Hajime had woken up, after months.

He’d always thought it would have been the same way, yet he wouldn’t step past the end of the bed, frozen in place. His fingers curled around the soft fabric in his arms, he watched silently and tried desperately to swallow the lump in his throat. Was his face always that pale? It was hard to tell, in another light he might have said that he looked peaceful. In that context, it was destructive. There were so many emotions at conflict inside him, it quickly became overwhelming. He cleared his throat against the most prevalent of all— guilt.

It wasn’t like he could have changed things, not really, but had he been there… if only Hajime had been more persistent, maybe things could have been okay. Maybe it could have been caught in time, maybe Tooru could have moved on. He’d been so focussed on himself that even early on he’d never had a close eye on the signs. He’d been incredibly selfish, concerned only for how their falling out had affected him, but Tooru lying there… white as the sheets he was smothered in, skin cold to the touch… Hajime could have sworn that the worst pain he’d felt in his life had been in a hospital like this one the last time he’d felt love the way he once had for his best friend. Once best friend.

Now, he was nothing more than a ghost in Hajime’s life, all aside from a name. He balanced carefully, settling slowly in the empty chair next to Oikawa’s bed, where he was willing to bet by the collection of nearby flowers, dying and dried up, his mother had been sitting probably for weeks at the very least. He’d been the last to know, and as angry as he wanted to be, he knew that wouldn’t have been fair. Instead, he just let the guilt consume him, fuming silently on the self-loathing he felt for letting the boy he grew up beside slip away. It had been slowly, day by day, and it had started the day that Hajime had woken up to no longer love him. He’d never thought it would have come to this. If Hajime would have had a choice, he would have chosen to have died on that operating table when he was still young. Young and naive. When Oikawa might have moved on, found someone new. When there would have been hope left for him yet.

The guilt was eating Hajime alive, because well— how could that be fair? With Tamaki he was happy, but it had never been the same when he’d officially lost Oikawa forever. Quietly, overcome by the grief, overpowering his reality, Hajime spoke, “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know.” He half expected lilting laughter, watched carefully for the flutter of long eyelashes and the shift of hazel brown eyes watching him. He’d gotten none of that, staring at the face that he’d watched open with joy, split with pain, twist with anger. He took it in, the agonizing silence, aside from the hum of the lights, quiet breathing, and the ambience of the hospital beyond that one room.

Hajime sighed deeply, tilted his chin down further at the feeling of movement, and reached up with his one free hand to shift the blanket in his arms. A soft, slightly pink and peaceful face framed by wispy, dark hair that was barely there, peaked from the blanket. “You know,” He spoke gingerly, stroking the warm skin with his thumb slowly, “I used to wish you wouldn’t turn out like me. Just that. I’m starting to think I might have chosen wrong with you though,” Tiny fingers curled around his thumb and his heart hiccuped in response, breath held while tiny dark eyes picked away the context of the world around them, including Hajime himself, like building a world around their conscious. “you had better damn outlive me, Tooru.”


End file.
